


Best Laid Plans

by Desolate_Smog



Series: Never Alone [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Is A Good Friend, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multilingual Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, but not a canon character, fight me on this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26710948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desolate_Smog/pseuds/Desolate_Smog
Summary: In which Remus gives actual good advice (??) and Virgil and Dee come to a decision.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders
Series: Never Alone [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1866010
Comments: 27
Kudos: 128





	Best Laid Plans

As soon as Virgil entered the school, he knew he should have listened to Papa.

“Are you sure you want to go to school today?” Papa had said. “You don’t look well.”

Virgil didn’t feel very well either, but the problem remained: he needed to talk to somebody about his soulmate issue, and the only person he could even consider talking to was Remus.

He couldn’t talk to his parents, because they thought he only had one soulmate, and he couldn’t talk to Remy about it because his cousin thought the same. He couldn’t talk to Dee because _that’s what got them into the mess in the first place_ , and he didn’t have anyone else.

Remus was the best choice.

And that meant going to school, even if Virgil’s vision was spinning slightly.

“Virg—whoa are you sick?”

Virgil stumbled as his friend appeared behind him. “No. Uh. Not really.”

Remus blinked at him. “I could smuggle you out. We could go through the sewers.”

“What?” Virgil asked, barely following the conversation.

“I don’t think you’re going to learn anything today ’s all.” Remus shrugged.

“I don’t really learn anything any other day,” Virgil said. It was unfortunate, but he couldn’t understand English and all the teachers avoided his guide. Not to mention Remus was Remus. The only learning he did was the English stuff his papa had given him and Japanese workbooks he’d found online, since he didn’t want to fall too far behind on his work.

“Well. Huh.” Remus said, thoughtfully. “You know, I hadn’t thought about that. Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t learning anything?”

“Thought you knew.”

“Anyway,” Remus waves the conversation off. “Where are we going?”

“Going?” Virgil echoed. “To class?”

“No sir-ee Virge-eroo,” Remus said, hooking his arm around Virgil’s and turning them away from the school. “You’re definitely dying so we’re gonna blow this popsicle stick!”

“Was than an innuendo?”

“Sure was!”

“Well, uh,” Virgil said, anxiety roiling in his gut. “I do want to talk with you—but you don’t have to talk with me if you don’t want to. I’d understand that, I don’t like the topic either all that much, maybe it’s better if we don’t, because—"

“Someone pushed your go button!” Remus interrupted, nudging Virgil with the elbow keeping them hooked together. “Whatcha wanna talk about?”

“...” Virgil hesitated. “Soulmates.”

They walked silently for a few paces, and Virgil resolutely stared forward, hoping that Remus wouldn’t abandon him.

Remus breathed in and out audibly. “Alright then! Let’s go talk soulmates!”

“Yeah?” Virgil asked.

“The way I see it, no one ever talks soulmates to me, so this is actually exciting!” Remus said cheerfully. Virgil wondered if his friend knew how sad that sounded, but then realised he also had never talked about soulmates with anyone before.

They were equally pitiful.

“My Mama’s out today, so we can go to my house and smash all the plates!”

“I don’t think your mama would like that.”

“She locks all the smashable ones away, so we’d have to pick the lock first,” Remus continued.

“Do you know how to pick locks?” Virgil raised an eyebrow.

“Well no,” Remus replied, “but I know where we can get a hammer!”

Virgil squinted at Remus. “Why would anyone let you near a hammer?”

“The fact that you wouldn’t let me near a hammer says more about you than it does about me!”

Virgil shook his head. “I really don’t think it does.”

——

Remus had been his usual self on the way to his house, which had kept Virgil’s raging worries down to a medium simmer. After Virgil convinced Remus that they didn’t need to break any plates (or anything else smashable), the two of them retreated to Remus’ bedroom.

The room was the same as the last time he had visited; half the room had dirty clothes piled up, a few motorbike and monster magazines, and various gory and spooky posters on one of the walls. The other side was less cluttered with Disney and various figures that Virgil couldn’t recognise.

It wasn’t hard to tell which side belonged to Remus.

“Okay.” Remus sighed as he flopped backwards onto his bed. He grabbed his pillow and threw it at Virgil.

Virgil stared at the pillow and held it out at arm’s length. “Do I want to be touching this?”

“Probably not,”

“Gross.” Virgil said, throwing the pillow back.

Remus cackled at him, tucking the pillow under his head. “Alright, I’m ready. Soulmate talk!”

Virgil’s nerves returned with a vengeance. “Uh, okay. Do I just—I’ll sit here.”

Virgil sat on the floor, his back against one of the legs of the bed, facing Remus’ brother’s side of the room. He bit his lip and wondered where he was supposed to start when Remus hit him in the head with the pillow again.

“Your butt is going to get sore sitting down there. Either sit on this or come up here and cuddle with me, bitch boy.”

Virgil poked his tongue out and climbed up on the bed, scooting himself back to sit against the wall instead of ‘cuddling’ with Remus. He hit Remus with the pillow for good measure.

Remus pulled the pillow out of his hands and tucked it back in its place under his chin. “You know, not having a soulmate isn’t so bad. I never have to worry about some fictional person that I probably won’t ever meet, I can draw dicks on myself and I don’t ruin anybody’s life, and I don’t have to stick with anybody that would hurt me just because they could magically send messages to me.”

Virgil stared at his friend. “What…”

Remus rolled over to look up at the ceiling. “I had this friend when I was little, before everyone started getting soulmates. She was feral and I loved her. Always dirty, always bruised, and we basically lived outside.”

“She sounds cool,” Virgil said awkwardly, concerned about the way the conversation was going.

“She was super cool!” Remus laughed, but his smile fell away quickly. “Until she disappeared one day. It was all anyone would talk about, how she wasn’t at school anymore. Turns out her papa took her and ran one night, ‘cause her mama was crazy and tried to kill them both. People say she was hurting them both for ages, but they never left because Elena’s parents were mated.”

Virgil looked across the room at the posters with happy, cartoon soulmated pairs. He thought about his grandmother, who was a mean old lady because her soulmate had run off with somebody else. He thought about Elena’s papa and how scary that would be.

“I get scared about that sometimes.” Virgil confessed, turning away from the happy posters to look at Remus. “Soulmates aren’t perfect.”

“People think you have to have a soulmate to be happy, but I don’t think that’s true.” Remus said, tilting his head to stare right back at Virgil. “So, if your soulmate has just done something horrible to you, I’ll totally pretend to be your soulmate for the rest of our lives.”

Virgil giggled a little in surprise. “My soulmate hasn’t—well they have, but not—”

Remus raised his eyebrows at Virgil, and Virgil sighed. He pulled his knees up and resigned himself to explaining the whole story.

“I… I have four soulmates.”

“Dude,” Remus said and then laughed. “Get wrecked.”

“Ugh, I know,” Virgil said. His emotions were all over the place, but the relief that flooded through him when he realised Remus didn’t care was like a drug.

“My brother has two, and that’s bad enough!” Remus cackled. “He’s forever accidentally hurting them, or they’re hurting him, it’s like having a live-in telenovela.”

Virgil hunched his shoulders a little. “Okay, well. This is a little worse than that.”

“Do tell,” Remus said, unabashedly.

“So, I may have um.”

Remus propped himself up on his elbows, a large grin on his face. “Go on,”

Virgil held a hand up to defend himself, even though he knew he hadn’t explained any of the situation yet. “Look, they couldn’t speak Japanese and I thought you were only supposed to have one—”

Remus sat up and leaned into Virgil’s space. “You never said anything to them!”

“I never said anything to them.” Virgil nodded.

“Ohhh my god—wait, wait, they found you out!” Remus said. “That’s why you’re all freaked!”

Virgil winced. “Yeah, kinda. My dads don’t know that I have more than one, and I don’t know what to _do._ ”

“Oh you did say you had one! How did you pick?”

“I didn’t mean to!” Virgil said, hiding his face in his hands. “Dee talked to me first, I had no idea he existed!”

“There was another one of your soulmates pretending to not exist!” Remus crowed. “Oh, that’s amazing!”

“Remus, please!”

“No, it’s too good!”

“Dee and I were the only two who didn’t speak English, so I think it was fair of us. We just decided that we were each other’s and happened to share our bodies with a triad.”

“Aww, that’s so sweet and dumb.”

“Shut _up,_ ” Virgil said, still hiding behind his hands.

“I’m guessing someone in the triad caught you talking with Dee?”

Virgil sighed. “Yeah. They had no idea what we were saying though, so we have that going for us. It just feels like I’ll never be able to talk to Dee ever again.”

“You’re so dramatic,” Remus laughed. “’O, secret love, we may never touch dicks because someone found out we existed,’”

“It’s not like that!” Virgil said, pushing Remus.

“That’s what it sounds like to me!” Remus said. “They know you’re there now, so they’ll be looking out for any more conversations anyway. If you’re both speaking Japanese, what are they gonna do? Google translate everything? The horror,”

“Russian. And I don’t want strangers knowing about what Dee and I talk about!”

“Russian!” Remus shouted, rolling up onto his knees. “How many languages do you know?”

“Three. I don’t need English.”

“Yeah, but this is an English-speaking country so I guess you’re stuck sucking balls.”

“Gross.”

“Anyway, I bet you that the triad are thinking you’ve been reading all their conversations for years. That’s what I’d do,” Remus shrugged.

“But I haven’t!”

“Would Dee?”

“N—” Virgil paused. “Maybe.”

Remus shrugged again, his large grin back in place. “Then what’s the problem?”

Virgil lifted his hand up and started listing on his fingers. “My parents think I only have one soulmate and might disown me if they think I have more, we’ve been keeping ourselves secret for years and they’ll hate us, my grandmother will kill me, none of us all speak one single language so we’ll never understand each other, I’ve been terrified of this happening for almost my whole life—”

“Those are stupid,” Remus said, waving about a dismissive hand. “That’s just your dumbass anxiety talking.”

“They’re not stupid.” Virgil clenched his hands.

Remus rolled his eyes and started counting things off on his own fingers. “Your dads are probably the best parents ever and they’d never disown you, no one cares if you’ve been keeping yourself secret and there’s no going back from being found out, and if the triad wanted to get in contact with you so bad they’d try talk goddamn Russian. Uhh… it sucks that you’ve been living like this. I would hate that. And what was the last thing?”

Virgil opened his mouth to refute Remus’ words, but Remus interrupted.

“Right, your grandma. She lives in somewhere that’s not America, so who cares what she thinks?”

“Remus, that’s not the point.”

“Sure it is! Listen Virgey, this is your life and you get to live it how you want to! Why not live it without regret!” Remus said, throwing his hands up in the air. His pillow fell to the bed.

“Things have changed so much already,” Virgil said quietly, staring at the pillow.

“And what if this is a change for the better?” Remus asked. “Things are changing anyway; you might as well try make it the best change you can.”

Virgil glanced up at Remus. “You sure I can’t ignore all of them and run away with you instead?”

“OO tempting!” Remus said, holding a hand to his chin and seemingly considering the offer seriously, even though Virgil had half meant it as a joke. “I’m going to have to say no but ask me again after you talk to your mates and maybe I’ll say yes. I’m a classy date, Virgey-poo, you’ll have to take me dumpster diving in all the fancy dumpsters.”

“We already go to all the fancy dumpsters.”

Remus dropped his hand from his chin and stared at Virgil with wide eyes. “My god you’re right. You better tell Dee we’ve been dating for months or this will get messy.”

Virgil burst out laughing, thankful beyond words that he had a friend that was as supporting and helpful as Remus was.

——

It was 4:46 am, and Virgil was staring at his bare leg in the pale light of the bathroom, waiting for a message from Dee. After Red caught them Dee had written one last message: «three days, four fifty am, I’ll message you»

It had been a long three days.

Red and the other two hadn’t written anything to each other since Red had caught Virgil and Dee talking. The only writing on them was on their legs, light blue and Red had each left an English message that said something like “please talk to us” according to google translate and the sparse English Virgil knew. Dark blue had gone a step further and had written in Russian. It was clearly translated by google, but Virgil figured it meant something like: «To our other soulmates, I am L. I hope we can all talk to each other. We understand that this is scary, but we will still appreciate it if you wrote something.»

Under that passage was another by L, «Red is R, and light blue is P. What should we call you?»

Virgil ignored those messages the best he could. He kind of hoped R, P, and L would forget about wanting a response, even though he knew that was about as likely as him being fluent in English by the time he had to go to school the next day.

All thoughts flew from his mind as he watched Dee write V on his leg.

«here, D» Virgil wrote back immediately. «I missed you a lot»

«I have never loved purple more» Dee said.

Virgil blushed and put his non-dominant hand to his face.

“You’ll kill me,” Virgil muttered to himself in Russian. “I don’t want to die in a bathroom.”

«what do you think we should do, D?»

Dee was silent for a while, and Virgil took that moment to get rid of the rest of his words. Dee followed his lead, and Virgil missed the evidence that Dee missed him.

«I don’t know» Dee finally wrote.

«I» Virgil bit his lip and tapped his pen against his leg a few times. «may have talked to my friend about this»

The silence that followed felt like minutes despite being seconds. «what happened?»

«he accepted me» Virgil reassured. «said we were being dumb and should just talk to the others since they know about us now»

«good, I didn’t want to murder him» Dee said. «but I hate that he has a point»

Virgil chuckled but hesitated before he sent his next message. «I’m terrified D»

«I know» Dee answered immediately. «me too»

«I still don’t know english and they won’t know japanese that’s for sure»

«I’ll translate everything for you» Dee slowly wrote after a second. «if we’re going to talk to them»

«I don’t want to lose you.» Virgil said. «if that means I have to talk to them, I’ll do it»

Virgil had to stop himself from washing away the confession. Dee hadn’t replied straight away, so that meant Dee hated him now, right?

«if it means we can keep in contact then we’ll talk to them V» Dee answered, using the first character for Virgil’s name in Japanese. «because I don’t know how to survive without you at this point»

Virgil hadn’t realised that Dee had remembered the character that he’d given him. Tears welled up in his eyes and he pulled his legs up to rest his forehead against Dee’s words.

«me neither» he wrote shakily, being far too close to the surface he was writing on. どうもありがとうございます

Virgil had to pull back from his legs to read Dee’s message. «I don’t know what that means but I’m going to find out»

Virgil smiled and yawned. A glance at a clock revealed the early hour of the morning, and Virgil knew he should fake some sleep for his dads so they wouldn’t worry. «should we leave these messages here and go to bed?»

«one second» Dee wrote. «let me finish writing down what you said and then we can get wash everything off and go to bed»

Virgil rubbed his thumb over the messages and started washing away his words.

With a plan in place Virgil felt less like a boat being tossed about in a storm. He hoped that things would work out, but if they didn’t Virgil still had Dee. That’s all he needed.


End file.
